Golf Lesson: How To Lower Your Handicap
In this video, Golf Monthly Top 50 Coach Trey Niven takes a look at the swing of former Premier League footballer, Jay Bothroyd. Since retiring from football Jay has devoted his time and effort to his golf game and has quickly reduced his handicap. But what does he need to do to reach the next level? We take a look at Jay's swing and the tips and drills that will hep him improve
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00:00Hey guys Trey Niven here top 50 UK coach I'm joined with a very special guest of
00:06mine Jay we also got the out-of-bounds show which we've been hosting at the
00:10minute we've just been playing a few holes out at Hadley Wood amazing golf
00:14course amazing weather today spotted a couple things in your swing Jay just a
00:18couple just a couple yeah not giving you too many though because I don't want
00:22you to get too good oh well I need you to show me how good you are okay so
00:25these tips could potentially get my handicap down which is what now at the
00:29minute 6.7 6.7 I've done some work in the winter things are looking good I'm
00:34improving but obviously you say you're a top 50 golf course we're gonna get you
00:40show me I think before I give you some tips we're gonna get down to five and
00:45below yeah deal yeah tell you what Jay strike perfect a little bit right there
00:54and off balance yeah do you think that's something you see in your game
00:57typically yeah I don't feel confident you know there's some days you turn up
01:03and you know you feel good with your driver but more often than not I don't
01:06feel confident from tee to fairway yeah when I'm on the fairway I feel really
01:10good and I think that's why my scores are low yeah if I can improve on my tee
01:15shot I think my my score will come down dramatically so that's what I struggle
01:19with I think just hit one more drive for us Jay but I think drivers got to be the
01:23one that we we look at today good shot actually well done so I think again you
01:36hit some really good tee shots you hit I would say more shots right yeah than
01:41left yeah but you can still have a bit of a left miss as well can't you but
01:45that's the right shot we got I'll probably look at first yeah it's like
01:48that kind of sometimes I just like you know that kind of knuckleball yeah yeah
01:52yeah so firstly in that what's really important to understand especially for
01:58the people at home is if it's a directional miss say right or left what
02:03do you think is causing that what's the physics what's happening an impact to
02:07cause that do you think my face is gonna be closed 100% yeah so you've got to go
02:11straight to the club face yeah if it's right left high or low it's generally
02:15where the lofts pointing so you've got to think okay how do we potentially if
02:20it's low less loft if it's right it's also closed so how do we bring that
02:24club face back and get it get it straight so I think just looking at your
02:29swing out on the course and just on a video then just set yourself up to as if
02:34he was gonna hit one good hold that there and just take the club back to my
02:39hand here great so this part for you if we slow the video down what you saw you
02:44saw your grip start to twist the club quite a lot early on yeah so now he's
02:49taking all the loft off the golf club and actually shooting the face okay so
02:52if you did nothing from here and let's just say you brought the club back down
02:55with no twist you can see club face is pointing a little bit low and then I
03:01probably do that right yeah and then you add things in to try and compensate for
03:05that kind of loss of loft and shut club face so everything that's tries to go
03:10that's another thing that I feel I feel that sometimes I do that yeah yeah try
03:14and combat it and then sometimes it works yeah but majority of the time it
03:17doesn't yeah and you see the bit that goes up is almost like your part to save
03:22yourself yeah because there's a we don't want to over complicate things want to
03:26try and keep it quite simple so just think it's going low right I need some
03:30loft and I need to square the face of a bit more yeah so just bring it back to
03:33about my hand again so about waist height just to there perfect I want you
03:37to focus on getting that club face pretty perpendicular to the ground so
03:42more of like the toe up the toes down less loft this is a little bit more so
03:48this is just really simple just takeaway piece okay you might focus on this
03:52little logo here or your watch yeah pointing up more that way yeah that's
03:56probably overdone but I'd rather you over exaggerate it a little bit to
04:01practice it at the start okay just do that one more time
04:06that's good and again good that looks really good okay we're gonna hit one
04:13there lucky try again feel a bit different yeah yeah it was really
04:22different actually so just ever so slightly feeling that watch up to the
04:29sky good so that one it's like the opposite way a little bit now yeah
04:36definitely didn't have any of that hook spin on it did it yeah so you can see
04:40whatever you change there in that early phase change how the face was impacting
04:45the ball yeah exactly yeah I'll tell you one thing for me that when I right now
04:50where my games are I just want to see my in the ideal world obviously fairway
04:57yeah but just down there in play even if it was in the rough I feel confident
05:01from there yeah that I can still get to the flag with my irons yeah because I
05:05feel my iron play is good yeah yeah I'd work on club face really simply don't
05:10overcomplicate it yeah just feeling like that watch is pointing up more to the
05:15sky as simple as swinging back to here that's it that's right just check where
05:19the face is do it again that's it just keep it as so simple as that yeah
05:28good and then you can even rehearse that into a little practice swing and then
05:33hit one like Justin Thomas practices that really early part doesn't it
05:38okay that's it and then you go in here
05:48and then what I think on top of that if you did start to see some go out that
05:53way what that is is you're almost your old release like you hanging on to
05:58trying to add loft so now you can just allow your hands and arms to release
06:03tell you for me being a football player yeah I respond well to feel yeah like as
06:10in an analogy you know so for me when I've seen that my practice swing my
06:16practice thing feels like my that's the way my real swing should be yeah so for
06:21example that's my practice swing but I can't replicate that with my real swing
06:28yeah and that's where I'm but the more you do of that though in your practice
06:33so if those last two have gone a little bit left add the same first move in but
06:38react to it try and bring it back now through the ball good try that was
06:44better yeah so educate yourself like hit different
06:48shapes like rights and lefts like educate your hands to be able to figure
06:52out where the face is so the practice for me then would just be that to there
06:56yeah and then back through squaring it that's it good happy with that yeah yeah
07:02no I can't give you too much so a bit of a summary for that one for Jay he had a
07:11little bit of a low right miss for him as a left-handed golfer so straight away
07:16got to go for the clubface doing anything that we can in that session
07:19there to square the clubface a bit more find a little bit of loft and just help
07:24him kind of generate a square impact so just if you're trying to get your
07:28clubface a little bit squarer and trying to find some loft I'd start with a grip
07:33if you can if you can't find it through the grip try and find it early on in the
07:38swing and that's kind of the approach that we went with Jay because he's kind
07:41of got his grip he's quite comfy with that so got to find it in the swing try
07:45and see the ball do something a little bit different and then after that see if
07:49you can bring that ball back to where you want it to finish